Possibly the most thrilling, sexually-charged ‘Walküre’ ever recorded, this CD features the sappy voices of Gré Brouwenstijn and Jon Vickers as Sieglinde and Siegmund coupled with two of the leading Wagnerians of their day – Nilsson and London – as Brünnhilde and Wotan. Also listen out for the wind machine introduced in the Prelude to Act I! This is real aural theatre.
RICHARD WAGNER
Die Walküre
Brünnhilde: Birgit Nilsson
Siegmund: Jon Vickers
Hunding: David Ward
Wotan: George London
Sieglinde: Gré Brouwenstijn
Fricka: Rita Gorr
Valkyries:
Gerhilde: Marie Collier
Helmwige: Judith Pierce
Waltraute: Margreta Elkins
Schwertleite: Joan Edwards
Ortlinde: Julia Malyon
Siegrune: Noreen Berry
Grimgerde: Maureen Guy
Rossweisse: Josephine Veasey
London Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf
Recording Producer: Erik Smith
Balance Engineers: Kenneth Wilkinson
Recording Location: Walthamstow Assembly Hall, UK, 9–16, 18 and 20–23 September 1961
‘…an exciting, eloquent, lyrical, and always vital account of the opera [it] draws splendid playing, of which the conductor must have been proud, and we should be, from the London Symphony Orchestra, all departments of which distinguish themselves. … Gré Brouwenstijn gives a most musicianly, youthful sounding and touching rendering of Sieglinde … Nilsson is glorious here, but one hardly needs to praise the greatest exponent of her part today … This wonderful Brünnhilde has worthy partners in George London’s Wotan and Jon Vickers’s Siegmund’ Gramophone
‘… one of the finest Wagnerian casts in recent memory under a vastly experienced ‘Ring’ conductor, and the result is a triumph … Perhaps the chief credit must go to the conductor, Erich Leinsdorf … possibly Leinsdorf’s greatest achievement is the way in which he maintains interest throughout the whole vast canvas. … and the final pages are more thrilling than I have ever heard them.’ Records and Recordings